


Light in the Darkness

by Sasha713



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Angst, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-11
Updated: 2011-06-11
Packaged: 2017-10-20 08:00:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 16,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/210538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sasha713/pseuds/Sasha713
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It had been three years since he had been on Earth. Maybe too much had changed... (Jack returns to Earth after three years imprisoned)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

_“Just think about it though, doesn’t the world seem much brighter when you have been sitting in the dark for a good long while? Makes you squint don’t it?”_   
__

 

Prologue

The planet was cold, the wind whipping at his straining body as he ran for all his worth towards freedom. Towards the thing he had been denied for so long he would barely recall ever knowing the sweet taste of it.

To have that again was the thing that drove him.

To see blue eyes full of intelligence and _knowing_ shining at him. Feeling the unbidden swell of emotion those eyes always managed to provoke from within him. He swore he would see that look again. That recognition on pale features of something _more_ that lay just beneath the surface.

She was his guiding light.

He stumbled towards the DHD, his eyes fiercely on the Stargate, fighting to get back. To get home. His legs felt heavy, his whole body protesting. If he stopped now, he would never be able to lift himself up again, and he would be lost.

 _Move. Don’t stop moving._

He didn’t dare glance behind him, knowing that his pursuers would most likely kill him this time. He had no idea how long he had been imprisoned, all he knew was that it was enough time for it to be a blur in his mind, the last memory he recalled was of the pain in Daniel’s features, the fear in Carter’s and the obvious horror on Teal’c’s usually impassive face as he’d felt the white hot pain sear him, radiating outwards from his back.

He knew some time had passed.

Could feel the strain on his muscles, the weakness in his limbs as he ran for the DHD.

He slammed against it, almost slumping over the device before he pushed himself upright and began to methodically dial in the a barely recalled address, not missing the way his hands were shaking, wrists bruised, mud caked in the sleeve of the shirt he wore.

The gate burst into life, almost blinding him in the darkness, and he spun, turning behind him with wide eyes as he heard the clank of armour, his pursuers running into the clearing, catching him as he launched himself off the DHD.

He closed his eyes as he mounted the stairs up to the Stargate platform, knowing that he was on the hairs breadth of making it through. Something searing slammed into his leg, crumpling it and he pitched forward into the event horizon, his equilibrium spinning as he fell through the open wormhole.

He came out on the other side, already on the verge of unconscious, his breath leaving him in a fast exhalation as he compacted against the ground, the momentum of his body making it feel like he’d fallen from a ten story building. He turned over and over, rolling down onto the hard stone platform, slamming to a stop against something, the still moment so at odds with the constant movement, his body still trying to process the motionlessness he now felt. His whole body throbbed, pain radiating, so intense that in the next instant, his eyes swam with dark grey spots before it was replaced by unrelenting darkness…


	2. Chapter 2

The phone call came at three AM in the morning. She’d answered on the fifth ring, the empty spot beside her barely giving her pause anymore as she reached over and snagged the phone.

It was Daniel.

He spoke in a rushed voice, and she was awake. Feeling the cold dread that came with a phone call that was barely explained.

 _‘Just come,’_ he’d said, the tone of his voice telling her everything. Something had happened.

She had no one to explain to. That she had to go. He wasn’t home anyway. He never was these days, the marriage she had used as a proof to herself that she could move on a sham.

She slid out of the rumpled bed, noticing again that his closet was slowly emptying of belongings. She closed it.

What Daniel had told her made little sense but she knew that she would never say no to him. Never let him down. She felt the odd twine of guilt and pain slide down her spine when she thought of the one person she had sworn to herself as a green captain at the SGC she would never disappoint. But she had. She had let him down eventually.

 _Jack_. She had never been able to forgive herself. Never had forgotten either. Wouldn’t let herself.

He had been missing for three years. Three years where she had methodically begun to sabotage herself, the anger and the sadness inside her slowly dwindling to a kind of numb acceptance.

She’d fought to find ways not to think about all the ways she had let him down. The only proof of his existence in her life _before_ the fact that she still unconsciously bought things that he liked. Froot loops.

And after a while, she knew that her husband had noticed. The fact that she bought them but never ate them. The way she would glare at him darkly if he reached for the box. That one time she had woken up to him eating them and she had lost it. He knew. He knew it was about Jack.

 _‘You expect me to compete with a dead man.’_ He’d muttered the night before as he had left. She never knew where he went anymore. Didn’t care if she was honest with herself.

She’d steadfastly ignored the opportunities outside the SGC. Had needed to stay there despite the glaring absence of Jack in the halls. Even after 3 years there was a void there. At first, she had been angry that the search parties had been called off. Had been unable to go off world for the first 6 months due to what they had called PTSD. Post-traumatic stress. It was more an unrelenting guilt that she had failed him. He’d had faith in her and she had failed. Left him to die at the hands of the enemy. Something that had always been a possibility. She had just always thought that when the time came, neither of them would return. But she had. She had.

It had been easy to convince them she was okay. That she was grieving yes but she would get over the loss of her commander. She had even managed to convince herself for a while. Getting married in a deluded strive for that elusive happily-ever-after, to take the attention off her slowly spiralling slip into something unnameable.

Going off world had even become easier when she had been allowed back in the field. Daniel and Teal’c had been there, and even the new captain that had been placed on the team had been working out.

But it wasn’t the same without Jack.

After a while, she hadn’t been watching for him in foreign crowds on different planets, as if she would stumble across him. She had eventually lowered her eyes to the ground, forcing herself to keep from looking.

He was gone. Most likely dead. He wasn’t coming back. The lines that had been drawn by the people around her. _There is no hope. It’s been three years._

When she got to the SGC, feeling worn and yet unable to stand the thought of giving up the fight quite yet, she found Daniel waiting at the bank of elevators that led to the surface, his eyes blanked, but a tension in his muscles that spoke of some underlying strain.

“What is going on Daniel?” she asked.

“About an hour ago, Garwyn contacted us from Cimmeria.”  He said, as if that explained everything.

“And you had to call me at 3am to tell me that?” she asked brusquely, her tone having him raise a brow. She saw the question in his eyes. Was she speaking like Jack? Maybe.

“It’s what she said that’s important.” Daniel replied as she stepped past him towards the control room.

“What?” she asked, frowning back at him.

“Sam.” She stopped at the soft plea in Daniel’s voice, turning to him to see that sorrowful light in his eyes. Like when he had first told her that they had called off the search party for Jack.

“She is convinced that _Jack_ is there.”

Sam felt her heart stutter in her chest, staring frozen at Daniel while inside her mind was a chaotic stream of thoughts that twisted and pulled at her. _‘No, he’s dead. It can’t be him.’_

She didn’t move, and the concern creasing his brow deepened, until he stepped forward, gripping her elbow with tight fingers.

“Sam…listen…SG5 have gone to check it out…”

“They are a new team…they won’t know if it’s him. I should…” She trembled, swallowing back the sob that rose in her throat unbidden.

 _‘Don’t get your hopes up. It’s can’t possibly be him. It just can’t.’_

Daniel led her to the control room steps, giving the SF at the top of the stairs a pointed look until he stepped away, lowering her to the first step before she fell over. He had never seen her face this pale. Had never seen the fear and _unknowing_ drenching her blue eyes.

The fear she had had when Jack hadn’t come home and the grief she’d experienced had rocked him to the core. She had been lost, her eyes hollow for months. Even before today, there had been a spark missing in her eyes, even when she had attempted a smile, whispering she was fine. Even her wedding day had been faked. She was still mourning Jack’s loss.

He had wanted to go through the gate himself when Garwyn had reported that Jack was there, injured but alive, but he had known that someone had to be here for Sam when she was told.

“Sam…Teal’c went with them. If it is really him, he’ll know.”

“But it can’t be. It just can’t be him.” She whispered, and he got the feeling that she was talking more to herself than him.

He watched on helplessly, her eyes wide and tormented, expression one of horror and of absolute, unyielding pain.

He sat by her side, reaching out to grip her hand in his, but she twitched, looking at him as if just realising he was there before she lurched to her feet, her fingers cutting through her hair sharply, catching on a knot in the longer strands before she turned away from him.

“Garwyn is lying.” She said harshly, the raw intensity in her voice cutting through him. She stalked off towards the elevator, slapping her hand against the button, her features drawn with tension, her whole body radiating with strain.

“Sam…”

She didn’t respond, stepping into the elevator before the doors had been able to open properly. She kept her eyes straight ahead as the doors closed, avoiding his gaze.

Sam slapped her hand against the stop button on the elevator, her eyes burning with the onslaught of tears that she was determined not to let fall. She sunk back against the wall, feeling a sudden panic overtake her senses.

God! Jack couldn’t be alive. He wouldn’t torture her like this. Wouldn’t have stayed away for three years when he would have to know what that would do to her! He wouldn’t have!

He wouldn’t suddenly step onto Garwyn’s world, alive, after so long. It wasn’t possible, was it?

She couldn’t believe it.

 _‘You left him behind.’_ Her mind reminded calmly, sounding oddly like Daniel.

She deserved the last three years. The complete mess her life had become.

She couldn’t move, sinking down to the floor of the elevator, giving herself a few moments of weakness before she struggled to her feet, continuing the elevator ride as if she hadn’t just almost completely fallen apart at the SGC.

 _Not your fault Carter._

His voice came swiftly into her head, and she clenched her teeth, realising that she hadn’t forgotten what he sounded like.

A part of her mind was begging God to let him truly be alive. The part of her beneath the scientist and beneath the Soldier. The woman. _She_ was begging for him to be alive.

Her rational mind told her it was unlikely, but why would Garwyn lie? Why would she?

 _She wouldn’t._

The doors opened on level 19, but she couldn’t step out, staring down the SGC hallway with a numb kind of distraction. The reality of what Daniel had told her suddenly sinking in.

 _Jack O’Neill could be alive._

“Colonel…?” She snapped her head up, the Airman standing by the door looking concerned.

“Are you okay Ma’am?” he asked, and she had to wonder how she had become so bad at hiding things.

“Fine.” She responded, before she back tracked, riding the elevator back down, goose bumps prickling her skin beneath the blue BDU’s.

She found Daniel in the empty briefing room, too early in the morning for anyone to be present besides the skeleton crew of SF’s, General Hammond’s office seeped in darkness beyond the glass partition.

Daniel stood completely still by the large glass window above, staring down into the gate room like she had witnessed him do so many times when a still moment was available. He’d told her once that he would stand here for hours looking at the gate before he had figured out how to work it. It had been his… _place_.

He looked tense and worried, like a part of him was wondering the same things as she was. Could this possibly be real? Could he possibly just walk though that gate like he had never left?

She came to stand beside him and neither of them spoke, just staring down into the gate room as people began to arrive on base, filling the silence with the familiar sounds of the SGC coming to life.

The General came not long after, coming to stand with them for a few silent moments, like a prearranged agreement.

“Any word?” he asked, gently, and Sam could feel the glance he cast her way, as if waiting for her to break apart. She wouldn’t.

Couldn’t.

“No Sir. Not yet.” She responded steadily.

When the gate finally opened, Daniel disappeared from her side, but she couldn’t do anything besides stand there frozen.

The leader of SG5 stepped out first, and she felt her heart stutter in the mere milliseconds it took for the next figure to appear. It was Teal’c. And he was carrying one half of a stretcher, the figure laying there unfamiliar to her, his body completely still, a mask over his face, clothing dirty and stained.

The only real indication that this was her Jack was the look that Teal’c cast Daniel as the Archaeologist rushed the room. Daniel looked up at her, catching her eyes.

It was really Jack.

And she couldn’t bear to see him.


	3. Chapter 3

Jack awoke to beeping, the sound familiar and yet, like a surreal memory come back to haunt him.

He fought off the vestiges of sleep, trying to focus his eyes. The last thing he remembered was tumbling like a rag doll through the wormhole, landing with a thud and losing consciousness. Garwyn’s face above him as she tried to rouse him, the sheer panic he felt at being touched again but unable to stop them from lifting him, moving him, their hands dragging across his grazed skin without remorse.

 _Hands gripping him, pulling him up, onto his knees, wrists shackled up by his head. Pain…Unimaginable._

 _Struggling. Forcing his head up to glare at the armoured warriors, fists clenched tightly, teeth gritted as he felt the first touch of the iron rod, charged and burning his skin. He fell forward, knees impacting solid ground…_

He jerked, eyes darting around the room, like it would all fade away at any moment and he would be once more in that barren cell, chains clinking from all around him, moans of pain cutting through and echoing in his brain. He hadn’t been able to figure out who was moaning. Maybe it had just been him that whole time.

He wanted to cling onto this illusion before him, eyes heavy as he tried to keep them wide open and focused. The infirmary.

 _Don’t wake up. Dreams are better than reality._

He preferred the delusion.

“Jack?” he turned his head, eyes snagging on Daniel’s face, the worry there evident.

“Dream?” he asked, his words muffled by the mask over his face.

“No. It’s not a dream.” He replied, a sad smile tipping his lips as he sat by his bed, the concern there cutting into him.

He sank back, unable to really believe him. Another game by the Goa’uld. A false sense of safety and security, taken away at the first sign of relaxation.

“How’s the pain?” Daniel asked him calmly, but he ignored him.

 _‘More pain. He’ll break…eventually.’_ The Goa’uld laughed in his head, making him squeeze his eyes closed to shut him up.

“ _Shut_ _up_ …” he muttered insolently, sleep weaving around him. He fought it, not wanting to black out again, helpless in the face of the fatigue dragging at his limbs, at his eyes, drawing him, panic welling to the surface as he felt the familiar relief that losing consciousness usually gave. He couldn’t feel the pain if he wasn’t awake.

“No more sleep…” he whispered, trying to wake himself up, turning pleading eyes to Daniel.

“ _No more_ …” It claimed him…

**********************************************************************************

 

Daniel stood from the side of Jack’s bedside as he passed out from the sedatives. His leg was severely burned from a staff blast, the skin just below his knee charred and seeping. The doctor had tended to him, doing blood work, revealing that he was malnourished, his leg may not ever heal properly due to a break that lay below the burn, a break that had not been tended to, the wound severe and left untreated for too long, the vicious scarring he would have making his old knee wounds seem like nothing in comparison.

He had been tortured endlessly, the scars on his body testament to that and the fact that his torture had never been healed. He had not been through a sarcophagus. His back was riddled with thin scars, criss-crossing the flesh, almost a pattern in the marks, some older than others.

The doctor had not been happy with his health; his whole body had been on the verge of just shutting down. He had lost weight, the clothing he had worn falling from his tall frame, eyes haunted, face gaunt. His state like that of a prisoner of war.

He had a long road to recovery in front of him.

The doctor had voiced her concerns that although his physical body may heal enough from the effect the torture had had, his mind may never be the same.

Daniel knew Jack had been through torture before, but this…this was _different_.

He opened the infirmary doors to find Sam pacing back and forth in front of them, looking strained, her eyes darting to the doorway as if she had been standing out here for an eternity, unable to go in and yet equally as unable to leave.

“He’s going to be okay.” He said softly as Teal’c stood by Sam; close enough to be a comfort but not actually touching her.

Sam just looked more panicked by the notion, like she had been thinking he might come back to them to just die all over again in their own infirmary. Before, they had the hope that he lived, but, if he was to succumb here…there would be no denying the truth.

“Sam… Do you want to see him?”

She froze, looking at him in fear. He saw the answer in her eyes.

 _‘I’m not ready.’_ …

**********************************************************************************

 

Sam looked down onto his achingly pale face, the lower half covered in dark grey beard, cheek bones gaunt and almost unnaturally ashen.

The first thing that really registered was the fact that he no longer had a tan. As if he had been in the dark for too long.

His eyes were closed, body covered by the blankets, the blue infirmary scrubs clean compared to the other soiled clothing he’d been wearing for God only knew how long.

His sleep was restless, a frown on his face, jerking every now and then as if he was trapped within some nightmare, brows drawing inwards.

A part of her had forgotten how handsome he was – even though he was worn and… _changed_.

She had watched him for the better part of a week, barely leaving the base, just needing to be here even though she had avoided being in his presence.

The private room he’d been given complete with an observation room, the mirror opaque, so he could be monitored without being disturbed.

She hadn’t been able to leave him.

The times he had been awake, she had seen the deep torment behind his hollow eyes. The way he would fold into himself when he was alone, and attempt to do so even more fiercely when he had company. Both seemed to make him uncomfortable in his own skin, and he would search for an escape, like he was still imprisoned, eyes taking in the exit, sweeping over where she sat watching him, as if he could see her, another enemy.

His mind was haunted by the last three years, and she wasn’t doing that much better.

She had been hiding from him by keeping her distance –unable to look away from the heartbreakingly anguished expression on his face. She had been unable to go into that room and sit by his bedside like Daniel seemed to find so effortless. She envied him that.

If only she could get the courage. But her fear, and the remembered grief she had felt when she’d thought him dead, was drawing her in and she couldn’t stop it.

Eventually, he had begun to see the people around him for who they were. _Safety_. He’d stopped looking at the nurses and at Daniel and Teal’c like they would morph into the enemy, even managing to converse with them sparingly.

Daniel had even helped him shave, revealing the smooth line of his jaw, the edges sharper than she remembered.

Daniel had taken him a yo-yo, but it sat untouched, his eyes blankly fixing on it when he was alone with only her watching him. He looked at it like it was just a reminder of all the ‘ _before’_ moments that he had lost.

His brow would furrow –as if angry at himself- and he would once more fold into himself.

She watched him now as he slept, his chest rising and falling. Rising and falling. _Alive_.

She knew that she had to let him see her. It had been long enough. She couldn’t handle the guilt of watching him, but not letting him know it.

He would understand her hesitance. Wouldn’t he?

She got to her feet…

**********************************************************************************

 

Jack awoke again; his muscles feeling less lethargic now, body readjusting to the stillness and lack of pain.

He knew that getting too used to that could only be bad if it turned out that this was really a dream, but, this moment felt like a calm moment in so long without.

He turned his head, finding _her_ standing there by the doorway, mere feet away, her eyes wide on his face, assessing every inch of him from head to toe, lingering on his leg where a wound throbbed from that last staff blast that had almost rendered him useless.

Her eyes skimmed up to his face, and, for a moment, their eyes locked, and all he could see was pain. Heartache. _Fear_. For him. _Of him_.

Her blonde hair was pulled back in a ponytail, fringe brushed to the side as if she had been running tensed fingers through her hair before she had come. She was beautiful. A little thinner than he remembered but healthy. The light from the corridor haloed her whole figure, making her seem almost surreal.

He was lost for words, having never seen such a sight before him.

Many times he had imagined her with him in that dark place he’d called home for the last…

…he wasn’t even sure how much time had passed.

It would always be different. Her in her lab, glancing up at him and smiling. Off-world, her lips pressed together in restraint after he tried again to make her laugh. The most prominent fantasy had been her standing on his dock, sunlight streaming down, glinting off her pale hair and turning it golden, her eyes alight with humour. She had never come there with him, so he knew it wasn’t a memory.

This was different though. In his fantasies, she was the same as before, but…her hair had changed now, skimming her shoulders, a few loose strands slipping out from the low ponytail to curve around her jaw.

Her hair had never been unruly on base before, so that alone told him that she had been uncertain of coming here. Like she had been hidden in her lab, her military control slipping just a little when her emotions got the best of her. It had always taken a lot to fray her edges.

He had hoped to never see her this way.

His recovery was coming slowly. He still awoke from nightmares, fine sheens of sweat prickling his skin. He had noticed her absence here. But somehow he had known she would come… _eventually_.

“Carter…” he said, attempting to sit up in the bed but failing. Her eyes looked panicked all of a sudden, and before he could even figure out what to say to get her to stay just one moment longer, she was turning and retreating, pushing out of the infirmary as if there were Jaffa on her ass.

He sighed and slumped back on the bed. He felt like a ghost. Like he had lost everything.

Because she _was_ everything…


	4. Chapter 4

The accusation in Pete’s eyes cut through her the moment she walked into the house, the first time she’d been here in a week. After failing so miserably in front of Jack, she had fled the base. She couldn’t watch him wordlessly like a coward anymore. He didn’t need her destroying his progress with her own inability to process his sudden return to Earth. His sudden reappearance in her life.

“You missed therapy.” He said as soon as she stepped inside their perfect little house, his body tensed, eyes full of barely-held restraint which told her how very desperately he wanted to rage at her for not trying to fix them. For shaking off his every effort. Unlike the other times...she hadn’t forgotten on purpose this time.

She looked up at him, unable to see anything of the man he had been before. The humour had faded, replaced by emptiness in his eyes when he looked at her.

“I’m sorry.” She replied, the words hollow.

“Are you?” he shot back. She looked down, unable to think. Unable to feel. Unable to see anything but pained dark eyes that had opened to her, drinking her in… and her inability to stay. God, how had she walked away from that? From Jack. Lying on that hospital bed so weakly. So unlike the strong Colonel he’d been.

She was too afraid to feel this. Too overwhelmed to face him and tell him what sort of life she had lived since he had been gone.

“I can’t do this right now.” She said, denying the battle that Pete was itching for, her mind still in that infirmary room.

“Oh right, it’s never convenient for you is it?” he asked, the tone of his voice patronising her.

“Look, it’s been a rough day…”

“I don’t care!” He said angrily. She looked at him then, seeing the edges of his careful understanding fraying under the desperation and anger, eyes glinting with the pain that he kept veiled below wariness.

“Please…” She said softly, hating that she was reduced to this. Begging him for leniency. She couldn’t deal with this right now.

His eyes turned stony, but he relented, brow furrowing under the weight of whatever he had dancing in his mind.

“You’re making it impossible for me to love you.” He said, almost to himself, before he turned and disappeared down the hallway.

Pete’s words brought less pain than she had thought they would. She should feel more than this. But she couldn’t. The only thing on her mind was the severe case of cowardice she was experiencing with the fact that she couldn’t bring herself to walk into the SGC infirmary and reach for the one person she needed to reach out to. Whose disappearance had left her in ruins.

Facing him –facing Jack- was more terrifying for her right now than facing the fact that her marriage was breaking apart around her, crumpling, the perfect house merely showing her how epically she had failed.

She had decimated him, dug out the easy, laid-back traits she had liked so much and left him a husk, his eyes seeing nothing of the woman he had married, the wariness there when they ended up in the same room dragging at her, a pressure that she couldn’t ease.

Because she didn’t want to pretend anymore.

She had the feeling that he didn’t either, and that he was merely hanging on to the woman she had been before Jack had been captured by the enemy. The woman that he had loved.

She didn’t even see a remnant of that woman in the mirror anymore.

And maybe that was partly why she hadn’t been able to bring herself to stay in the infirmary with Jack, afraid that he wouldn’t even recognise the hard woman she had become. That thought panicked her.

Because she had given up on Jack. Moved on. Lost hope.

She had made a mess of this, and she had no idea how to relieve the stress. How to repair what she had purposely broken…even though it hadn’t been a conscious effort.

She stayed on the lounge until dawn…

**********************************************************************************

 

Daniel sat by his bed, talking about anything and nothing while Jack sat staring into space, still seeing that scared expression on Carter’s face as she’d bolted. He had the feeling that she hadn’t expected him to wake up while she’d been there. Had willed him to stay asleep.

“Ever get the feeling you shouldn’t even exist?” he asked out loud, mainly talking to himself. Daniel stopped talking abruptly, looking at him closer than he felt was necessary.

He was fine. Wasn’t he? The counselling he’d been forced to endure breaking him from the idea that maybe this wasn’t real.

He would be fine. He would get out of here, finally get to retire. Lead a relaxing life trying to get over the past few years like they had been nothing but a bad mission.

“She just needs time Jack.” Daniel replied, somehow knowing that he was talking about how he felt he didn’t exist anymore in _Sam’s_ mind. She had looked at him like he was a ghost. And he really felt like it.

Weeks passed and she didn’t return, and he felt almost normal when Daniel drove him to his house, the goose bumps prickling his flesh as he had stepped out into the sunlight for the first time in weeks making him uncomfortable.

Both Teal’c and Daniel had cleaned up his house, a house that they hadn’t sold on his behalf. Daniel had said something about knowing how it felt to have a house sold out from under him when he wasn’t _really_ gone.

He settled in, the cane he now used to walk around replacing annoying people attempting to _help_ him. It gave him his independence.

He’d never felt more alone, and he suspected it was because of the absence of Sam in his world. Not only had he lost his career, but he had lost her too, his only real solace the fact that he was still a _resource_ to the Air Force and apparently to the good old US of A.

It did little to stop the nightmares.

Daniel had told him about Sam, and with every word that came out of his mouth about her marriage, he had hated the Goa’uld who had kept him prisoner even more. If he had been here, maybe he would have stopped it.

But then again…he was sure he would have just placed it under the category of another regret he had when it came to her.

He would have let her go. And he hated himself more for that, knowing that he would have been right in _this_ position anyway.

And still he didn’t push. He didn’t chase her up, despite the fact that every time he awoke from a nightmare, he would reach for the figment she had been in his mind while he’d been tortured. And in those moments, he could relate to Ernest Littlefield, talking to a woman that wasn’t even there, seeing her, hearing her voice, soothing his fears and driving away the spectres of his torment.

She had been his salvation, and she would probably never know. She had her life now, and he was determined not to let his homecoming destroy that for her, no matter how much he wished he could…

**********************************************************************************

 

He sat alone on his back deck, beer in his hand, lounging back in the outdoor chair he’d set up, his bad leg stretched out before him in a bid to ease the cramp.

His head was rested back against the back of the chair, the brilliant night sky stretched out above him, the bright speckled swath of black making him feel not so broken. He was so small in comparison to the universe. Merely a dot.

It tended to bring his experiences into a new kind of perspective. That it wasn’t as monumental as the people that had been around him since his return had made it seem.

It made the fact that Sam was married somehow more…acceptable in his mind.

 _‘It’s what you wanted,’_ his mind said, his eyes closing at the fact that the stars seemed to be losing focus as his mind dragged him back inside. He found that reality only lasted as long as his mind didn’t sabotage his image, the lines between truth and lies wavering, confusing him.

Opening his eyes, he started when he felt a presence, turning his head, eyes narrowing into the darkness beyond his little world on the deck.

She was standing by the side of his house, her eyes searching for something in him. Familiarity? Comfort?

He could offer neither.

He turned back to his stars, a part of him hoping she would leave. After knowing the truth about what she had been able to do in his absence, he wasn’t sure he could bear to look at her without some kind of accusation in his eyes.

The last thing he needed was guilt eating at him as well as all the other issues gnawing at his insides.

“Carter.” He mumbled, taking a draught of the beer in his hand, hoping that it would numb him enough to deal with her presence here.

“Daniel told me you were home.” She said, stuttering slightly, her voice making him close his eyes.

How many times had he wished to hear her voice in the last three years? Soothing him when the pain they had inflicted had become too much. Telling him that she had a half-assed plan to get them out of there.

But she had never been with him. He had to keep reminding himself of that pertinent fact.

“Sir…” she whispered, closer now. His eyes flashed open, feeling the sting of that word. God, why was she giving him the barrier now? Why was she putting up those walls still?

But he knew why. She wasn’t sure how to relate to him as a _man_. Only the Colonel. Only ‘Sir’. And he wanted to hate her for that.

“I’m not him anymore Carter.” He muttered, unable to keep the resignation out of his voice. She came to stand level with him, her eyes flicking upwards, and he watched her from his periphery.

She didn’t say anything to his words, seeming to be lost in her own mind for a moment, unable to even look at him unless it was from beneath lowered lashes.

“Daniel told you?” she asked, finally lifting her eyes to look across at him.

“Told me what?” he asked, finding that playing the vague game was more manageable than actually acknowledging what she was talking about. It had always been easier to avoid. To stick to almost conversations over… _the truth_.

She didn’t respond, and he realised that she was letting him have this. Letting him have his oblivion. Either that, or she was unable to find the words to tell him herself. Or _unwilling_.

That she had married Pete Shanahan.

“Your telescope….” She began, changing the subject.

“In a box somewhere.” He offered up gruffly, not really caring. He didn’t want to talk about his telescope. “But you didn’t come here to talk about that, now did you?” he said sharply, getting annoyed with her.

“I came to…” she stopped, unable to finish that sentence.

“To what?” he demanded, getting to his feet, finally looking at her. _Really_ looking at her.

Her expression turning to one of complete and utter distress as she fought some internal battle. Some reason why she was standing here in his backyard, hiding behind their old pretences again. Like falling back on a habit long neglected.

“I should have visited.” She said after a moment, her agonised expression clearing to one of clarity. One of pain. “I just couldn’t…”

She was justifying.

Like it mattered anymore.

“Forget it.” He muttered, grabbing the cane he had rested on the banister, taking his weight of his leg which was beginning to ache from the cold. He found it refreshing, but his leg protested.

The first night he had been back here, he had sat outside all night, unable to close himself inside. He found it easier to breath out here.

He didn’t try to fill the sudden silence hanging between them…heavy and full of everything that had ever been left unsaid between them.

The barriers were still present between them. He had stupidly thought once that the regulations were the only thing that was keeping those barriers there. He’d been so naïve. He’d been a fool to believe that they could have had something once the war had been won.

It had been a delusion.

“Go home Carter.” He said gruffly, unable to let himself continue this conversation.

The memory of her had helped him through his darkest hours –but now, the reality of her was destroying him slowly. He recognised the fact that he had never truly had any kind of real claim on the reality of her in the first place.

He wasn’t angry at her for moving on. For marrying Pete. God knew she deserved peace and a _life_.

He was angry at himself for caring so much. For hating her because she had found a life with some other man and not _him_. He had never promised her anything.

Hope was as much a delusion as true happiness to him. Especially in his world now. In the life of uselessness he was now forced to lead.

“I’m glad you’re alive, Jack.” She said, her voice trembling with pain he chose to ignore.

He was really starting to wish that he wasn’t. Facing her pain would just make it harder for him to let her go.

He turned his head, finding her gone, the emptiness where she had stood beating into him. Another order successfully followed by _Colonel_ Carter.

He decided then and there that sobriety was for those people who actually _had_ a future…


	5. Chapter 5

Sam knew she was avoiding him, Pete, and each time she glanced down, she felt the burn of the ring that sat on her finger. He stayed on a friends couch these days, and he never came home unless he really needed something. It had become painfully obvious that they had stopped pretending, the therapy sessions cancelled. They had let it go too far. She had ignored the signs. He had been proof to her. Nothing more.

Pete came out dressed for work, clipping on his shoulder holster before reaching for his jacket and badge, having had come home for some new clothes. To pack a bag. The only thing keeping them together the fact that they hadn’t spoken the words. _It’s over._

He didn’t look at her, crossing to the door and pausing with his hand on the knob, hesitating.

“I can’t do this anymore.” He said wearily, looking over at her with blank eyes, his jaw clenching.

“I know.” She said softly, meeting his eyes.

“Be here later. I think you owe me at least that.”  He said, his anger returning, before he left, the door thudding with a little more force than was necessary.

Hot tears filled her eyes. She had never wanted it to come to this.

**********************************************************************************

 

He stood unmoving at the edge of her porch, uncertainty creasing his insides as he noticed the small nuances of her life. What it had become. He had needed to see it for himself. His presence here having nothing to do with his conversation with Daniel that very morning.

**

 _“Just…go see her Jack.” Daniel sighed._

 _“She has her own life now Daniel” He responded, thinking_ ‘One that I’m not a part of anymore.’

‘I’m not who she wants anymore.’ _She’d moved on. Found a newer model. Found happiness. Who was he to futz with that? He had nothing to offer. Nothing besides nightmares, vicious scars cutting across his back and a veteran’s card. He’d become expendable. What exactly made him so special to think he could mean_ anything _to Sam Carter? …Samantha Shanahan._

 _He was a broken old man who Carter couldn’t even fix –not without hijacking some new parts._

 _“She won’t say anything –but she’s having problems at home.” Daniel’s words left him cold. Problems at home? God, not Sam too. She was meant for more than a broken marriage._

 _“She’s a big girl Daniel.” He responded. He had no right to ask her. No right to go and be that shoulder to lean on that he had always been for her. He hadn’t been that for her in a long time._

**

The house was a picture of perfection, the lawn cleanly cut, shrubs and flowers lined the edge of the porch, the house proof of how much things had changed since he had been gone.

He had never thought she had been capable of such normalcy.

Her car sat in the driveway, the afternoon sun glinting off the silver Volvo, proving that he hadn’t arrived at the wrong address. Still he glanced down at Daniel’s scrawled handwriting across the back of a crumpled museum flier; as if hopeful he was wrong.

There was no other car in the driveway, but he could almost feel the weight of that other presence there.

The boots that sat discarded at the front door merely a testament to what he already knew.

Sam Carter had finally managed to get that life he had urged her to get –and it broke his flawed heart.

He stepped up to her door anyway, making a conscious decision, his leg giving a twinge, reminding him that he wasn’t supposed to be even walking, the cane in his hand making him feel weary like so many other things these days. He’d balked at using it, but, he had grudgingly accepted it was a part of his life now. His years were finally catching up to him. He had never thought he would be forced to retire. Discharged due to injury. What an anticlimactic end to his career.

He still felt the trembles over take his body now and then, but, somehow, he quelled them now, needing to be steady to face her. Needing to ready himself for seeing her in her life. God, how was he supposed to face that? See all the aspects of her life that she shared with someone else?

He steeled himself, determined, closing his eyes momentarily before he knocked on her front door. _Their_ front door.

**********************************************************************************

All she could do was stare. He was actually here. Standing on her doorstep, eyes intense and dark. The contact something she hadn’t had since…before.

All the time lost between them, the years of him being gone seemed to close up, knitting together, and she could almost pretend it was years earlier and he was making an effort to tell her that he wanted to be in her life, something she had imagined way too many times.

She looked at him in the dimming light, feeling suddenly uncertain.

She was terrified.

It vaguely registered that she had become a damn mess.

“I had to see…for myself.” He muttered, as if that explained and justified why he was standing here seemingly casual in her presence when mere days ago he had stood from his back deck and told her to leave, dismissing her without even truly looking at her. Despising her for something she had already despised herself for.

And maybe that something had nothing to do with Pete, but more about the barriers still standing so solidly between them. She had felt in that moment that they had gone from meaning everything to each other, to meaning _nothing_.

All the sacrifices and world-saving and unspoken promises lost in the void between the ‘them’ that existed _now_ and the ‘them’ that had existed _before_.

It shouldn’t mean more to her than losing her marriage, but it did. It always would. Because Jack was the one that she knew she would never have to pretend with.

Never have to say she was fine without him noticing the things she didn’t say. Because he had always been able to read her.

And she needed that.

She stepped aside, opening the door further, before she turned and walked back inside, letting him follow her in if he wanted to. She willed him to, even though she had never been more nervous. She needed him here, and now that he was here, she realised how desperate she had been to feel his presence. Hear his voice. She was destroying herself with it, unable to think about anything else besides the need she had in her to assure herself that he was _okay_ and he wasn’t going anywhere.

His presence was like a heavy weight, and she could feel his eyes on her as he entered the kitchen, so close and yet…he seemed so out of reach, his mind not quite what it used to be. She wanted to pull him back from the precipice he seemed to be on, but she wasn’t sure how. She felt like she was failing him again. And that made tears burn her eyes. She fought them back.

 _‘I had to see for myself.’_ He’d said, and she wondered what exactly he was talking about. Whether it was just to see and accept her new life, or…that Daniel had told him about the issues that had grown like some insidious virus between her and Pete, only growing worse, overwhelming, since jack had been carried back through that ‘gate.

She kept her face turned away from him, unable to really look at him, busying herself with trying to act normal. Make coffee. Talk. Pretend there weren’t some minute fissures in the pretences they had always stuck to. Toe that invisible line. She couldn’t afford to let her composure crack. Not now. Not in his presence. She had to keep her distance. Because it would be torture not to.

**********************************************************************************

He looked at her closely, seeing the torment in her eyes as she tried to calm down, the minimal shaking of her hands as she tried to steadily make coffee –a distraction- clear to his watchful gaze.

She was as lost as he felt. This wasn’t what it was supposed to be like.

He knew his actions were bordering inappropriate, but he couldn't help himself. Having her so close after so long...it was like a new method of torture.

She trembled, and he had to believe she agreed with him.

He couldn’t take the tension anymore. Before he could stop himself, he was walking towards her, seeing her tense at his approach, feeling him there behind her.

He wasn't touching her, but he wanted to, his hands clenched in his pockets to stop himself from reaching out and drawing her back against him, fingers curling around her upper arms, chest pressed to her back, nose buried in her hair, dipping to taste the skin of her neck. He needed that so badly. So badly just to feel her.

He reached forward and cuffed her wrist with his fingers, stilling her movements, breathing in the scent of her, filling his nose, something that no amount of memory could manifest. How he had longed to smell this sweet intoxication while he’d been imprisoned.

He couldn't do this to her, but he couldn’t find it in him to step back, dipping his head even as she shivered, from his touch or his presence he couldn’t tell.

“You’re never close enough in reality.”

He shouldn’t be doing this. Shouldn’t be so close. So broken without her.

She turned her head, the agony in that one expression making him regret coming here. His mere presence was hurting her. He pulled back, breaking the contact, taking a few steps backwards, injury forcing him to limp.

He watched as she reached up a trembling hand, wiping at the tear that had coasted down her cheek.

It wasn’t fair of him to push her like this.

 _‘She’s married.’_ He reminded himself, feeling the surge of unexpected bitterness that fact evoked.

She turned abruptly, as if she had thought her biggest fear had come true, the relief on her features as she looked at him standing there in the centre of her kitchen palpable.

“Jack…” she whispered, that heart rending expression there taking his breath.

 _‘I’m glad you’re okay Sir.’_ A memory the day they had lost Janet emerged, her features taking on that same tormented sadness as that day. And like then, he couldn’t help gravitating towards her, and she met him there, her arms around him, her breathes hitting the side of his neck raggedly.

He felt his muscles tense from the slight pain in his body, but he ignored it, holding her against him, dipping his head, allowing himself to breathe her in despite how wrong it was to want this. Want _her_. Especially now.

“I’m sorry.” She sobbed brokenly against him, and he closed his eyes as he felt her pain billow in his chest, as if he was a conduit for those deeply agonising feelings she was experiencing.

He took a shuddering breath, his fingers threading into her longer hair, unable to let her go after the minimal amount of time passed with her in his arms.

“For what?” he asked into her hair, stroking her inappropriately.

“Everything.” She murmured, pulling back to look up at him. Unable to stop himself, he reached out and cradled her face in his palm, knowing she could feel the shudder in his body, but unable to hide the reaction.

He wiped at her tears with his thumb gingerly, never been able to do this before. Not having the ability to cross that line. Too much had happened to him over the past few years. Too much regret resting heavily inside of him to hold back. He couldn’t add more regret to that pile. It was already so large.

The touch was so bitter sweet for him, such a simple innocuous thing, but…it was so deep. So…unreal. So _essential_.

Maybe he wasn’t really here after all, because she couldn’t _possibly_ be looking at him like that. Like she was torn apart by the simple touch. She parted her lips, breath catching at the uncharacteristic contact.

He ached to lower his head and kiss her. Ached to feel her lips part against his, explore her mouth, prove to himself that this was real and not some fantasy concocted from too much pain and too many hits with the Taser rods the Jaffa had been so fond of.

Maybe he had gone insane. Lost in his mind.

He had always thought it would happen eventually, but at this moment…he wanted it to be more than that.

“I really don’t want to wake up.” He whispered, his body tensing, waiting for the moment to fade away.

Confusion entered her eyes, before they cleared, and she glanced down at his mouth, as if she wanted to prove that he was real as well.

“Me either.” She replied, lifting her eyes back to his, the searing need there tearing into him.

Headlights cut across the room, night having fallen outside without notice, the interruption breaking their moment.

This made it feel more forbidden. More wrong…which was wrong in and of itself. Things with Carter had never been wrong, not underneath anyway, and this moment was just sullying that knowledge he’d always kept close to his chest.

He couldn’t bring himself to back away, despite the fact that her husband would walk into the house at any moment –catching the painfully raw moment between ex-CO and Subordinate.

Sam’s expression turned to one of haunted guilt, but he wasn’t sure if that was because of their almost adulterous moment –or because they’d been interrupted from it.

Her brow furrowed, as if she was just as confused about the specifics as he was.

“Pete.” She said as explanation, as if he had ordered her to tell him who she had married, the pain in her voice talking of edginess and unwavering sadness.

 _‘She’d hummed for him,’_ he thought vaguely, that memory searing through him, making him feel like he’d been hit with a staff blast again. Only the wound was on the inside this time.

He inevitably did find them in the kitchen, but Sam had backed off to minimal safe distance by then, trying to look calm and unruffled despite the obvious tension in her body.

Pete assessed the situation with steely eyes, his lips parting with a slackening recognition as they cut across Jack. The tension he radiated showing that this was only one among many blows, an extra pressure that was slowly but surely bringing him that much closer to some eventual combustion.

His eyes took them in, and Jack couldn’t ignore the way that Sam barely even looked at her husband, as if ashamed to meet his eyes. Daniel had been right. Sam was having problems at home. And Jack had stepped right into the middle of it without intending to.

“Should have known.” Pete muttered, shaking his head, jaw clenching as his eyes cut into Sam. She did look at him then, her eyes fierce, like she was warning him not to make a big deal out of this.

“So, O’Neill, not so dead after all huh?” he asked, the sneer in his voice full of bitterness.

Jack met the other man’s eyes, seeing the changes. The dark edges that hadn’t been there when he had met him briefly three years prior.

“I guess not.” Jack replied, the steady snap of his voice not going unnoticed. Carter looked at him, her eyes full of pleading, like she knew what he was thinking.

“I want to talk to you… _alone_.” Pete said, his glare not breaking as he focused his pale eyes on Sam. She hesitated, biting into her bottom lip, darting a glance at him, hands gripping the edge of the bench, knuckles white.

A silent request in their unspoken language. _‘Don’t go.’_

His offer to leave died on his tongue. He had been willing to leave. To dispel some of the tension in the room. He could see the almost desperate edge to her eyes –like she couldn’t do this without the safety net he’d always been to her. Before.

She pushed away from the counter, releasing a breath and following Pete out of the kitchen and into the hallway beyond.

“Was he ever dead, or was that just another lie?” Pete demanded on a harsh, angry mutter and it was hard not to hear his words. Jack looked down, frowning, knowing he should probably just leave. Forget that Carter had wanted him to stay.

He would not be the reason for her marriage falling apart.

But he couldn’t leave. Couldn’t retreat. Because it would feel too much like he was leaving her behind.

 _‘She left you behind,’_ the inner voice he had tried to studiously ignore muttered from the very back of his mind, embittered by the fact that he had been left without hope of rescue in the bowels of a Goa’uld prison.

That image he’d kept in his head, the only thing keeping him sane, of her standing on his dock with the sunlight streaming down, a smile on her lips rose in his mind, reminding him of one thing. She had never left him.

She’d been with him the whole time.

“Tell me the truth, damn it!” Pete’s rising voice broke him out of his thoughts, and his eyes narrowed, gripping the side of the bench to keep himself from trying to protect her. He wasn’t that man anymore.

“He came back a few weeks ago.” She replied calmly, sounding together and composed.

“Guess that explains why you want this divorce so much.” He heard, before Pete came storming back out into the kitchen, his eyes glinting as he looked at Jack still standing there, his anger seeming to ratchet up when he noticed he hadn’t left.

“Why couldn’t you have stayed dead?” he demanded furiously, lashing out as he stalked back past him towards the front door.

He had asked himself the same question. He was merely surviving. Life was supposed to be more than that, wasn’t it?

The door slammed in Pete’s wake and the house fell into a stifling silence.

Jack remained rooted to the spot. He’d never wanted Carter to get a life like _this_. She deserved…better.

He’d never wanted her to have a marriage like the one he’d had after Charlie had been taken from him.

One of strain and _necessity_.

He found carter in the bedroom, seeing the unrelenting sadness on her features, as if she had been unable to face him after the confrontation with Pete. He guessed that she still somehow couldn’t show him anything that drifted into the ‘too personal’ category. He felt an odd protectiveness wash through him, wondering if the lines they had drawn between them years ago would ever be swept away.

They had silently agreed to keep it in that room, but, she had taken it further, disallowing anything too personal to seep through her tough exterior, as if it would only take one little slip for her to open the door and let him in. Let what they had kept clandestine burst out.

Now, she wasn’t hiding behind a door. She was hiding in plain view.

She didn’t look up at him as he stopped in the doorway, leaning against the door jamb, wordlessly waiting for something he knew she would feel obligated to share now.

“We’ve…been having problems for a while.” She said, not looking up from where she sat perched on the edge of the bed, twisting the wedding ring she wore on her finger, as if she was finally considering taking it off after a long time of hesitation.

Did his presence make her more willing to shatter whatever tenuous grip she had on _fixing_ the broken relationship she was in? She had never liked to leave things undone before, but he guessed that she’d left herself in disrepair for years now.

“I’m sorry.” He said softly, sincerely meaning it.

“I did it to prove I was okay. That I’d…moved on. That I could get that life you had always told me to get. I should have known that it was the wrong reason. I guess I just wasn’t okay enough to think rationally at the time.” Her tone was one of complete defeat. She had probably known that her marriage had been just a temporary fix-it the moment she had said ‘I do’, but she had just been in denial.

He wanted to cross the room. Try to fix her pain – but he couldn’t step into that bedroom, knowing that she had shared it with Pete. Knowing she had been trying to replace him in her life. To steady herself with a marriage that couldn’t truly mean that much to her if she explained it as a way to prove she _could_ get on with her life. He somehow doubted it had been a success. She just seemed resigned to the breakdown of things with Pete.

“I guess I can’t fix everything.” She said almost to herself.

“Do you want to?” he asked pointedly, meeting her gaze unflinchingly as she looked up at him in the doorway.

She didn’t answer, looking troubled again, like she couldn’t think beyond this moment.

“Not everything needs fixing.” He muttered, thinking of himself. He wasn’t sure that he would ever be the same again. He felt…changed. Unable to feel comfortable in his own skin. In his own life.

“I think…I think that maybe _I_ do.” She replied, her eyes meeting his again, drinking him in with a kind of reassurance of his presence.

As if she thought she might suddenly wake up and find him gone again.

He could relate.

The more time that passed, the more comfortable he became that he was truly _home_ –but he still had moments where he’d dream of her face and wake expecting the cold, harsh reality of torture and dank, dark chambers.

He found himself jerking awake in the darkness sometimes, hands shaking as the reminders of his ordeal coursed through his subconscious, reaching for the reality of her but finding nothing but an empty bedroom with blank walls.

Many times he had awoken seeking her presence, wishing so hard for her to be beside him but knowing she wasn’t.

She stood from the bed, pacing across the room, the frustration on her face tangible.

“I need to get out of here –this room, this _house_.” She looked at him, freezing in her trek across the room, her face softening as she took him in.

“I’m sorry. I know you didn’t come here to deal with this…”she waved her hand, managing to encompass everything with that one gesture. Her emotion, Pete …her life.

He considered that, finding himself saying the first thing that came into his mind.

“Maybe I _did_ come for this.”

He’d always had her back before. Why should this be any different?

Her eyes met his, her body frozen as she looked at him with a kind of shock that was replaced by caution. They had spent so long pretending, that even now, she seemed to need their pretences. He just couldn’t give them to her. So much had become obsolete because of his capture.

It was time he was honest with her, but right now, she was dealing with her own issues, and she didn’t need his muddying the water. She seemed almost devoid of her determination. Lost her will.

And he wanted to see to it that she got it back.

“Come on.” He said, motioning to the front door. She was still looking at him as if he had completely lost control of all his faculties.

“Carter, you _need_ to get out of here for a while.” He said, knowing that his voice sounded condescending, his brow raised with slight exasperation.

Her eyes took him in again in that disconcerting way that made him feel like she was looking into his very soul, like so long ago when they had been standing on the opposite sides of a force shield, needing contact but unable to touch.

She felt more in reach now somehow than ever before.

“Okay.” She said after a moment, walking determinedly over to the night stand.

She placed her ring down…


	6. Chapter 6

She wasn't sure what coming here with him –to his house- was supposed to achieve. She had convinced herself it was nothing more than an innocent need inside her to get away from the life she had forged with Pete.

She had been wrong. The moment she had looked at him from across the lounge room where he had silently watched her with an obsidian gaze, his features so familiar and yet changed, she had known that she had come for one reason.

 _Inevitable_.

The words that they hadn’t said now spilling from their eyes, revealing much more, the presence of their unspoken language snapping between them.

He didn’t move, his dark eyes assessing her, looking for the potential regret she may feel for coming here, trying to gauge whether this was truly what she wanted. That she was finally willing to let this happen. His eyes lifting slightly as he watched her, recognising the lack of fear in her expression.

 _It was time._

He took the steps towards her, his cane forgotten, eyes heavy and intensely focused on hers, and she found herself unable to protest the weight of his mouth on hers, instead moaning at the forbidden touch, his lips firm on hers, unyielding yet soft, the lack of hesitation on her part shocking her. She kissed him back with every ounce of denied passion from the past, unable to help the decimating wave of desire she felt drenching her insides.

In that moment, she knew that her life was changing again, but instead of happiness, she could only feel a muted acceptance of this. A realisation as he splayed his hands on her back to draw her firmly against his lean body that this was _right._

 _This shouldn’t feel right_. She thought mildly, her mind shutting down with the feel of him pressed so intimately against her. Something that should feel more forbidden.

Wrapping her arms around him, she didn’t slow the embrace, instead frantically tugging at his shirt as if she couldn’t think beyond that.

She needed him. It was that simple.

They made it to the bedroom with him stripping her, his hands methodical as he unleashed her from her clothing.

She reached up to pull at his shirt but he brought his hand down on hers, dislodging her hands from the material, pulling them away before he went back to cradling her breast in his palm, his lips grazing across her jaw, whispering "No." against her skin.

She frowned at his huskily spoken denial, wanting to feel his skin pressed to hers, not just the abrasion of the material of his shirt.

He lifted his mouth and captured her lips, drawing her further against him.

She protested, pulling her mouth free only to arch her back, his hands surely caressing her bared skin, sending streaks of sensation down into her belly.

She couldn't think while he felt her so sweetly, the taste of him on her tongue, the heavy weight of his hands on her skin, a touch she had only dreamed of for more years than she could even recall.

At the beginning of her relationship with Pete, and before Jack had disappeared, she had sometimes tried to close her eyes and imagine it was _him_ touching her, and not the man she was with.

Now, when she was given the chance to live the fantasy she had been denied, _he_ was saying no to her touch. Like the very thought of it was something he abhorred.

She wouldn't let herself think that the very thought of not touching him made this feel _wrong_.

She needed this too much to stop this because of whatever reason he had for his vehement 'No'.

She stopped thinking.

Jack fought to ignore the confusion in her eyes, fought to stem the flow of utter panic he had felt at the prospect of her touching his back, of feeling and seeing the disfiguring array of marks that denoted him as a tortured man.

He never wanted to see how terribly flawed he had become on the outside. He had always had inner scars, but this was different.

Instead of dwelling on that fact, he lifted his head and kissed her hungrily, revelling in her. That she was here by choice. That she wanted _him_. Was kissing _him._ _'Until she sees the scarred, battered body,'_ he thought darkly.

He held her hands, but she didn't take that as a reason to try to stop touching him, her fingers curling around his where they were pressed between them, the backs of her hands grazing his bared abdomen.

Unspoken. Everything always seemed to go unspoken between them, and this didn’t seem to be any different. She didn’t question his protest to her touch, hands once more attempting to curl underneath his unbuttoned shirt to wrap around him, to where he could _feel_ the scars like brands –throbbing with the remembered pain of their infliction, making him flinch.

He backed her up a few extra steps and forced her back onto the bed, ignoring the stab of pain in his leg when he came down over her. He wouldn’t let the injury dictate him. Wouldn’t let her see more weakness from him. He would prove that he was worth this. Prove that this forbidden act wasn’t a mistake.

His mind was in turmoil as he slanted his lips across hers, and he struggled to keep his mind on the here, on the warm body that lay beneath him, her lips parting below his. He was focusing too hard on keeping her from touching his disfigurement. From seeing.

She would never want him then. And the pity would begin. He wasn’t sure he could deal with that from her. Deal with the careful looks and half smiles, as if they would take away all his pain.

She was naked below him, her breasts pressed up into his chest even while he pinned her hands by her head, kissing her like he had always craved. Her body was thin and soft, fitting so perfectly against his, but, still, his mind wouldn’t let him relax. Wouldn’t let him lose himself in her.

This moment was too dizzying. It had been something he had fantasised about for 7 years before his capture. And it didn’t feel real enough.

The tension began in his chest. His uncertainty of whether or not she was real cutting through him.

“Be real.” He muttered against her lips, tightening his fingers around her wrists when she attempted to reach for him again, a low whimper of protest expelled against his lips, hips arcing from the domination.

He wasn’t doing it to control her; he was doing it to save them from an awkward rejection.

 _‘She would never want you.’_

“I’m real.” She said, squeezing his hand when he slipped his fingers with hers, tangling them to hold onto her, trying to stop her from fading away. Heavy lidded eyes pinned to his, and he was caught by the tears there. The sadness for him. She swallowed convulsively, biting her bottom lip, as if he was breaking her heart.

“You always say that.” He murmured gruffly. “In my head.”

She pushed against his hands, making him look at her.

“Jack…I’m here. This isn’t a dream.” She said, searching his eyes with a stern kind of concern.

He reached up and twisted one strand of hair between his fingers, -no, this wasn’t a dream. This was his Carter beneath him, cradling his hips between her thighs.

He couldn’t think of this as something he would regret, ignoring the little voice in his head that said she deserved more than this. Deserved something less imperfect. The fact that he was almost fully clothed something he was afraid to change.

He reached down, palming his own flesh and guiding himself to her entrance, untested.

He didn’t wait, unable to stand the pressure inside him, and not just from desire. Her lips parted, head falling back as he slid inside her warm, alive body.

He didn’t feel so much like a remnant with her enveloping him, her fingers tensing around his at the first thrust.

He leaned down, dipping his head, breathing her in- needing to live through her, taking in everything she was.

He just needed her, and maybe, if he let her, she could chase away his demons with her soft willingness.

Her fingers clutched with his, as if she needed the connection as much as he did, and he moved inside her, withdrawing and thrusting back inside, his only thoughts _‘Home. Finally home.’_...

**********

Sam woke up alone in his bed, the blankets around her naked body, feeling the bitter-sweet ache of her body, thinking that she should feel happier than this.

But he hadn’t been completely here with her. Not the whole time. He had been afraid of her touch. It hadn’t been nearly what she had imagined their first time would be. In her mind, and through all those years of wanting him, she had never thought it would end up been a forbidden thing in the darkness. Like they were still leashed with regulations, and speaking about it would only destroy the illusion.

Only one thing plagued at her as she lay there.

She needed to see. Needed to see why he had been so distant. Almost detached from the moment.

Needed to know what he hid beneath layers of clothing, why he had held her hands down by her head as he had thrust languidly into her body, unwilling to let her fingers smooth over his skin. Like he feared what she would touch.

He was flawed now. She could see the insecurity in his eyes when the idea of leaving the light on had arisen. He had flinched when her hand had slid over his shoulder to grip him harder, her hips lifting for his penetration into her slickened body, and he had wrapped his fingers around her wrists, holding her down, his head buried in her neck, lips brushing over her skin as he slid in and out of her, as if he was burying himself inside her in more than one way. Trying hard to forget. Trying hard to feel alive again.

The tears had come unbidden to her eyes as she had felt his breathes huff against her skin, her hands clenching impotently as he held them by her head, disallowing her from touch him more than he wanted her too.

 _They had broken him._ The mere thought of touch seeming to make his comfort level lessen.

They had destroyed him. He seemed so sturdy despite his leg, seemed so…normal.

But it was all a charade. He had always been as good at pretending as she had been.

Now, she heard the shower running, biting into her bottom lip with indecision. But her decision was made.

She had to know what he was so careful to keep from her.

She knew that there was something. Daniel hadn’t been able to meet her eyes when he had found out the truth of Jack’s torture. He had said that there was scarring, but he had remained silence about the extent of it.

She got up and got dressed minimally, finding her clothing scattered on his floor, trailing out towards the lounge room. She gathered them, then crossed to the bathroom door, opening it, the steam within telling her he had been in here for longer than a while.

Her eyes narrowed on the glass shower door partly open, her breath catching at the flash of skin she could see. His hands were braced against the wall, head bowed under the spray, the leaner lines of his body in stark relief under the fluorescent lighting of his bathroom.

Her hand flew to her mouth as she caught sight of the damaged skin of his back, thin lines of scars crisscrossing his normally smooth skin, like a roadmap sliced into his very being, deep enough to leave the scars. It was brutal and it was like a reminder. A reminder that they had broken him. Continuously draining away his will and strength with the torture they had inflicted. They were lashes that had obviously been brandished on him over time, cutting across his back and down to his hips, one even curling up his neck.

She felt pain rock her. She hadn’t been able to save him from this.

“Get out.” He said deeply, not lifting his head, his body tensed, something she hadn’t noticed from the shock that radiated from the scars and the effect that seeing them had on her.

God, why had they done this to him? Why _Jack_?

“I said get the hell out Carter!” He snapped and she retreated, unable to handle the way he shot a glare at her, feral and dark, that one look telling her that he could and would inflict pain on her if she didn’t leave. An abrupt reprimand.

She knew that pushing him would only make him more fiercely protective.

Seeing what they had done hadn’t disgusted her because they made him ugly or raw. Seeing what they had done had made her want to track them down and kill them for it. Retribution.

Her heart beating rapidly against her chest, she sat on the edge of his bed, feeling uncertain. Vulnerable. Eyes darting to the bathroom door every now and then, waiting for him to come out.

He didn’t, and with every passing second, she felt worse and worse, her mind coming up with scenario after scenario of what he would say once he appeared.

He did eventually, his eyes dark, glancing at her before he walked out in a towel, a long sleeved shirt buttoned haphazardly to cover the damage, hair in damp disarray.

“Bet you regret last night now huh Carter?” he said bitterly, jerkily pulling a pair of his old jeans from one of the boxes they had stacked in the closet when he had been gone.

“I don’t understand…”

“Finding out you slept with a disfigured, crippled old man…” He said, pulling on the loose pants, and throwing the towel aside, buttoning them up, then digging around for a belt in the box.

She stood up and moved closer to him, only to see him flinch and turn on her, eyes fierce, body rigid.

“You should go.” He said, leaving no room for argument, so completely closed off from her now.

“…I just needed to see…” She said, swallowing hard at his dismissal.

“Why?” he demanded sharply.

“Because…”

“I don’t need your pity.”

Sam felt anger well up inside her at his unrelenting bitterness.

“That’s not what this is!” She snapped.

“Then what?” he asked, his eyes glinting dangerously.

She kept her mouth shut, her body trembling with anger and fear. He was likely to keep her at arm’s length now, convinced that she deserved better than a ‘disfigured, crippled old man’.

“I don’t care about them. I care about…you.” She said softly, gathering her things and turning to walk towards the door, voice trembling.

“I don’t need your _care_.” he replied stiffly, the patronising tone of his voice clear.

“If you want to push me away Jack, then do it.” She said, stilling to look at him, his eyes full of that façade of anger, underneath which lay vulnerability.

He didn’t want her seeing his scars.

“Just so you know…” She said, turning back to him as an afterthought “…I’ve been seeing your scars for years, the only difference is that these ones are on the surface.” She left, knowing that he would not listen to her anyway. Love and frustration warred within her, but she ignored both, allowing him to wallow in his own self-shame.

Jack stood motionless long after she had left, thinking over her words, his mind trying to engage past the humiliation he felt at her seeing the scars. Seeing the way he had become ugly.

She deserved more than some beastly man who limped and was 16 years her senior. She didn’t deserve to be held down by some retiree whose services were no longer needed because of these injuries that would never completely heal.

He crossed back to the bathroom, removing his shirt and stepping in front of the mirror, trying to see himself through her eyes. Objectively.

All he could see was ugliness. Skin once smooth now riddled with more scars than anyone he had ever seen.

He lowered his eyes and sank down onto the edge of the bath, giving his leg a rest, placing his head in his hands.

 _‘I’ve been seeing your scars for years, the only difference is that these ones are on the surface.’_

He wasn’t sure how to proceed. He loved her, but…he should be letting her try to repair her marriage that had been breaking down. Pete at least was younger than him. He had no scars. He wasn’t jobless and useless.

Compared to Pete, he felt… _less_.

So why had she come with him. Why had she let him be with her? Touch her?

She hadn’t been disgusted. She had been shocked.

And he wasn’t sure what to think of that.

Maybe he had reacted wrongly, but…he couldn’t figure out if he should apologise grudgingly…or just let her go.

He groaned…


	7. Chapter 7

She felt helpless.  He wasn’t likely to trust her again. Maybe she should have just left him alone. Let him show her –or not- in his own time. Her innate struggle with needing to know things had just bitten her on the ass.

God, maybe she had been sabotaging, not him.

Two weeks passed without any word from him, two weeks in which Pete sent her divorce papers and told her that he was selling the house. A nice way of saying _‘get the hell out or I’ll have you removed.’_

She was okay with that. She had never liked the place anyway. So she left, Daniel and Teal’c helping her with the things she could claim as hers alone, leaving before she had to face her soon-to-be ex-husband. Another failure of a relationship.

Now she was facing the failure of her and Jack before they had even had a chance to _start_ a relationship.

Mostly she stayed on base, buried in paperwork and simulations, ignoring the outside world. She ignored the twinge of hurt in the vicinity of her heart when she thought of Jack and the anger in his eyes.

She had screwed up. She knew that.

When she got home, she wearily climbed up the stairs to the apartment complex and crashed on the old bed she had for some reason kept in storage when Pete had insisted on a new one for their new home. Like she had known that it would all blow up in her face eventually.

No house. No husband. No _Jack_. Just loneliness again. And an unrelenting realisation that maybe she just wasn’t cut out for any real, meaningful relationships with men. Alien or otherwise.

Maybe it was just her. Maybe she was poison. Don’t get too close.

She was almost asleep when there was a knock on her door. She jerked awake, exhaustion driving at her insides, but she moaned and rolled off the bed anyway, taking a few unsteady steps before she made it to the door.

She opened it to find Jack standing there, hands in the pockets of his jacket, looking unsure. His eyes taking her in, assessing her, the light in his eyes cautious.

He didn’t greet her, just watched her with an unflinching gaze, as if he had missed her but was struggling inside with that confession.

“What are you doing here?” she asked before she could stop herself, the censure in her voice unmistakable. She cringed inside as his eyes hardened.

“Greet everyone like that, or am I just that special?” he asked sarcastically. That old defence mechanism kicking in at her tone.

She stepped aside, allowing him to step past her, his limp not as pronounced, like he was trying to stop it. Did he think she would judge him so harshly about something he couldn’t help?

Closing the door, she turned to him.

“How did you know where I’d be?” She asked, although she was pretty sure that Daniel had probably told him.

“I think you already know.” He said, raising a brow. She nodded, looking down, her arms around her waist as silence reigned between them.

“Carter…” he began, rubbing a hand over his jaw looking weary. Tired. Like he just wanted to sleep.

“I’m sorry.” She blurted out, her words spoken quickly, like she was trying to say them before she lost her nerve. “I shouldn’t have…”

She trailed off, glancing up at him, hoping he knew what she meant. _‘I’m sorry I looked.’_

“No. You shouldn’t have.” He replied, his eyes hard and emotionless, posture stiffening. She felt like he’d slapped her, and she closed her mouth, unable to think what else she could say. What he _wanted_ her to say.

His torture and the effects seemed to be yet another thing designed to keep them apart. There were no regulations anymore. He was retired. They had three years of nothing stretching between them, three years she had spent grieving and hurting over his “death”. Three years of pain. And now he was standing here before her in her lounge room, boxes lining the walls of the barren apartment…the place somehow feeling more like a home with him standing there.

There were so many things she wanted to say to him…but nothing seemed to be good enough. Nothing seemed right. She was still trying to convince herself that this wasn’t some kind of sick fantasy.

If she didn’t know better, she would think that Fifth had made a comeback, giving her some achingly morbid fantasy in a bid to get her to stay with him.

Somehow, she thought she might actually be able to handle that better than the reality.

They stood in awkward silence for a few moments, his eyes glancing around the room in an odd kind of familiarity. He had always attempted to feign comfort in the past when they had been forced into a situation where they had to be alone.

She guessed that even through everything they had been through, any real emotional comfort had never truly been shared. In the field they had been perfect. Methodical. Capable. Professional for the most part.

But…alone?

On _Earth_?

It was like they were strangers. She had to wonder why they were even _trying_ to do this when they were both so emotionally crippled, unable to tell the other the blatant truth.

Half-admittances seemed to be their forte –even after all this time.

“I’d like to sleep the whole night through.” He said abruptly, not bothering to ask her about how she was settling into the new place. About how she was handling the whole Pete thing. About anything that would require a real level of connection.

Asking with glances instead of actual words seemed to be a hard habit to break.

She looked at him, seeing the exhaustion around his edges, the heaviness of his eyes, the tension in his muscles, lips thinned with strain.

She wasn’t sure what to say, and he kept his eyes from hers.

She wasn’t even sure how to ask him. She would always call him _‘Sir’_ in the past. The inflection of a question in her tone. But that wasn’t something she could do now. He wasn’t even _close_ to being her CO anymore.

But, she felt like she couldn’t call him Jack either.

He turned his eyes to hers, the intensity there tearing into her.

“I’m tired Carter.” He said sighing, saying so much more.

“So am I.” She replied, and somehow she knew that it wasn’t just a physical tiredness that he meant. It was _deeper_.

It felt like for the last three years of her life she had been drifting in a constant state of awareness. Just waiting for something to break. That if she didn’t keep her eyes open, everything would fall down like crumbling ruins around her, and she’d never dig herself from the rubble.

That she would come undone.

And now he was standing there, telling her he just wanted to sleep. And it was the best invitation she had ever been offered.

His body seemed to relax a little, and he reached out after a moment of hesitation to touch her, dropping his hand back to his side uncomfortably.

“When you were there, the nightmares didn’t come. But then you were gone again. Started to think I’d imagined you. Has happened before.” He confessed, seeming to lose all his will, his shoulders slumping slightly, the weariness clear to her.

She took half a step towards him, reaching out and taking his hand in hers, looking fiercely down at his fingers, feeling his warmth, feeling _him_. Not a fantasy. Real.

She looked up into his eyes for a moment, before she stepped back, drawing him with her, carefully, allowing him to decide if he wanted to be led where she was taking him.

He followed her, his fingers clenching around hers momentarily before they eased once more. An agreement.

She walked into the bedroom, the bed a mess from where she had rolled out of it.

She turned, and looked up into his eyes. “Then let’s sleep.”

The stark relief in his expression made her wonder how many nights he had struggled with this. How many nights he had considered coming to find her but hadn’t?

She was glad he was here.

He watched as she settled on the bed, releasing his hand, and he stood there for a moment looking over her before he sighed and sat on the edge of the bed, slowly drawing his boots off, then his jacket, turning to slip into the bed beside her.

He was tense for a moment before he turned to look at her, lying on his back, his dark eyes glittering in the moonlit room. He reached out and touched her cheek and she reached up to link their fingers.

“I’m glad you came.” She whispered, feeling the tears in her eyes. “I’m glad you came back.” She reiterated.

He closed his eyes for a moment, before he drew her against his side, his forehead against hers. “Always.”

Sam wasn’t sure what they would do, or how they could manage this, but she also knew that she had to give it a try. _They_ had to try.

It had always been him, but she’d been too afraid to admit that…even to herself. Not until she had thought he was dead had she really realised what exactly he was to her and she wasn’t about to let that go now he was here next to her, his warmth sinking into the places that had lain frozen since he had been captured.

She closed her eyes, her fingers clenching into his t-shirt, unable to let go in case she woke up and he was gone again.

She was sure she would be able to look at him, and not think he would fade away like smoke on the wind eventually, but for now…she would just have to hold onto him to remind herself that he was really here.

His scars didn’t matter. They never would.

Because she loved him.

Maybe she wasn’t ready to say it yet, and maybe it would never need to be spoken to be known…but it was there.

And he knew.

She fell asleep, feeling rested for the first time in a long time.

**********

He reached for her in the void between his nightmares and reality, wakefulness and sleep, taking comfort in the warm body close to his as his breathing evened out from the intensity of his dream.

He was shaking, the images skipping in his head making his body throb, as if he could feel every blow, every lash…every agonising moment of those brutal three years all in this one moment.

He needed distraction.

She was awake beside him, he knew she was, and she seemed to understand, hesitating only for a moment, her eyes on his face, before she was coming closer, lifting up on her hands, blonde hair fanning around her face in the dimly lit room. His nightmare hadn’t just disrupted him.

He reached up, smoothing the soft strands back from her cheeks, cupping her face and drawing her down to him, lips capturing hers in a desperate bid to chase away the remnants that always inevitably returned when his subconscious was too weak to fight them.

She came to him willingly, passion and lust beginning to smooth the rough edges of pain and writhing torment curling beneath his skin.

He felt the slide of her hands over his chest, undoing the buttons, moving further over him, her hands slipping to his waist band. She straddled him, her hips shifting until a sweet ache began to throb through him, a longing he needed to satisfy.

He needed her imprinted on his skin, not the bite of remembered pain that had interrupted his restful slumber.

She could drive away his suffering.

Maybe it would stay away if she kept touching him, kept kissing him, warming him –the slide of her tongue invigorating him.

He kept a firm hold of her, hands heavy on her hips as a flashback threatened to debilitate him, playing in his head. He groaned as the memory faltered, her constant caresses bringing him to the here and now, her hands stroking his chest, his torso, cupping his hard flesh in her hand.

He needed more skin-on-skin contact.

‘ _More_.’

“Jack…let me?” she whispered against his lips, her hand pausing when she slid her fingers over his collarbone, curving around his shoulder under the unbuttoned shirt, hesitating as she reached his shoulder.

He stiffened below her, his hips arching slightly despite the tension inside him from her request. His mind was warring between needing her touch and fearing it.

The need won out however as she kept stroking him gently, waiting for him. She’d asked _permission_.

She reached up and pulled her own shirt over her head, revealing bare flesh to his hungry eyes, her body coming to sink down into his, soft mounds of her breasts tipped with tight nipples pressed against his chest, tearing a groan from him because of the searing heat of her.

He nodded against her, swallowing as he gingerly sat up, his arm around her to keep her against his chest, pressed firmly there. She tentatively tugged his shirt from his shoulders, and he squeezed her to him, his mouth resting against her neck for a moment before he released her slowly to allow her to draw the material away.

Despite the lack of covering, she still didn’t move to touch his back, her hands on his shoulders, sifting through his hair. She slid down over him, thrusting her hips down to envelope his aching flesh, his head tipping back as spirals of pleasure consumed him, running through him.

He tightened his arms around her, helping her find a rhythm, the slow slide of her skin on his making him feel completely surrounded by her, his eyes hooded as she caught his gaze.

He watched her expression raptly, her eyes heavy-lidded, lips parting with each grind. _Beautiful_.

With each passing moment, he felt himself release some of the tension from his nightmare, the images not so harsh as she held onto him, her body merging with his, pushing the fear back down.

She found her release, her body shivering over his, a soft sigh expelling from her lips at the continued thrusts, her hands tensing on him, body slumping slightly, but she didn’t stop moving, giving him what he needed to find his own completion, their breathes cutting up the silence in the room.

Her hands were at his sides, fingers brushing at the edges of the scars, the slow caressed _helping_ to ease his emptiness, and he gripped her against him, his lips grazing across her cheek, jaw, collarbone, tasting her skin, stilling to allow her hesitant touch. __

Sam had never felt such thankfulness. He was letting her in. It was only later as they lay entwined that she could think clearly. He had become her clarity and she was okay with that.

He turned to face the wall, the sheet stretched taut as he disconnected the contact; his shoulders tense with something she hoped was not regret.

“I’m not perfect.” He murmured in the darkness of the bedroom, still in doubt of her sanity over allowing him this chance with her.

Like she had ever had a choice.

She needed him, but he didn’t seem to realise just how essential he was to her life.

“I never wanted perfect.” She whispered back, resting her mouth to his shoulder as she pressed herself against his back, skin to skin, no barriers separating them.

He didn’t try to pull away again, accepting her touch despite his previous determination to avoid it.

 He said nothing, sighing, and she knew that a part of him would always doubt her. A part of him would expect the other shoe to drop eventually. She would just have to prove him wrong.

Maybe that’s what she had needed all this time. Not some perfect happily-ever-after, because her jaded heart knew that future may not even exist.

Maybe she had only needed this moment. This final revelation that this was right. This right here was _alive_ and worth more than he had ever believed. More than _she_ had believed.

She traced the lines and harsh scars on his body; feeling torn when he didn’t try to hide his slight flinch. He didn’t demand she stop though, didn’t push her away, relaxing into her touch, his tension easing.

This was right. It always had been. She’d been blinded to think that she could ever make do with someone less. Someone who didn’t have these scars.

He turned to her and cradled her face in his palm, looking at her with an open expression for the first time in a long time, no denial or self-loathing staring back at her from the tormented depths of his whiskey eyes, and she finally understood what exactly she had kept fighting for.

A chance at something more.

 

 

EPILOGUE

She stood on his dock, just like in his fantasy, her hair kicking up on the breeze, the sunlight that he had always imagined cutting through her hair turning it golden. Her eyes turned to his, seeking him out, no true smile on her lips but the starting of something resembling one, that notion easing his mind.

He still hadn’t erased the sadness from her eyes, but she seemed…calm now.

He watched her as she turned away from his pond with no fish in it, and wandered up to where he stood at the back door.

“It’s beautiful Jack. More than I ever imagined.” She said softly, her eyes alight with something he could only hope was sincere happiness.

He couldn’t agree more. _She_ was more than he had imagined. She had saved him, and he liked to think that maybe he had managed to save her as well.

His nightmares didn’t dare come with her in his arms, and even when they _did_ dare, she was right there, chasing them away, and for once, he was looking forward to the future…no matter what that entailed.

He took her hand in his, their fingers linking and she leaned against his side, both of them gazing up at the sky. So clear now when before it had been stormy and desolate.

He didn’t feel so much like a useless, incorporeal entity anymore.

Because she loved him.

.fin.

 _Listening to: ‘Fix you’ by Coldplay_


End file.
